Wednesday, 9 January 2013

Liverpool Care Pathway - Doctors Should ‘Face The Legal Consequences’

This medical
protocol is a passport on a one-way journey to the ever after.

It is dangerous that the whim of arrogant
clinicians, like theDullahan,dismounted
from their Cóiste Bodhar, may determine that the aged, the frail, the weak and the vulnerable placed at their mercy are to be consigned on the Pathway
of death!

"Dr Bee Wee, president of the Association for Palliative Medicine, said the checklist for LCP patients was sometimes used unthinkingly by staff.

‘We know that training deficiencies exist,’ she said. ‘If people are getting bad care, we need to get to the bottom of it.’"

Dr. Bee Wee, at once, you frighten
me, you anger me, and you offend me. Can you make so little and so light of
this? If you do, indeed, believe this to be the case, you must, at once, suspend this
murderous practice.

Do so now. Else, do you make yourself complicit in it and must
be held accountable!

"In the Commons debate, one MP claimed patients were being killed with ‘machine-like efficiency’ with fewer than 5 per cent of patients placed on the LCP ever taken off it.

Another said failure to inform a family that a patient was being put on the scheme was tantamount to ‘murder’ and that doctors who did so should ‘face the legal consequences’."

Not consulted: Fiona Bruce said she was told 'almost casually'by a nurse that life-saving treatment had been removed fromher 83-year-old father

An MP told movingly yesterday how she saved her father from the Liverpool Care Pathway, two years after her mother endured an ‘agonising’ death on the system.

Fiona Bruce said she was told ‘almost casually’ by a nurse that doctors had decided to remove life-saving treatment from her 83-year-old father, despite not having consulted relatives.

She moved him into a nursing home where, six months on, he is thriving.

Her mother died after she was placed on the controversial system following a brain tumour operation.

Mrs Bruce spoke out during a Parliamentary debate on the pathway, in which MP after MP criticised the way it is being implemented in hospitals.

In a separate development, senior doctors conceded the LCP has become a ‘euphemism for death’, with families ‘frightened’ about their relatives going on it.

Dr Bee Wee, president of the Association for Palliative Medicine, said the checklist for LCP patients was sometimes used unthinkingly by staff.

‘We know that training deficiencies exist,’ she said. ‘If people are getting bad care, we need to get to the bottom of it.’

In the Commons debate, one MP claimed patients were being killed with ‘machine-like efficiency’ with fewer than 5 per cent of patients placed on the LCP ever taken off it.

Another said failure to inform a family that a patient was being put on the scheme was tantamount to ‘murder’ and that doctors who did so should ‘face the legal consequences’.

Care Services Minister Norman Lamb, who following a Daily Mail campaign ordered an independent inquiry into the pathway which will report by the summer, said he had been ‘personally horrified’ by accounts of food and drink being inappropriately withdrawn.

pathway which will report by the summer. He said he had been 'personally horrified' by

accounts of food and drink being inappropriately withdrawn

It was ‘non-negotiable’ that relatives should always be consulted, he said.

Every year, 130,000 people die on the pathway, under which doctors remove life-saving treatment. In December it emerged that almost half are never told that treatment is being removed.

Mrs Bruce, vice chairman of the parliamentary Dying Well group, said that in her mother’s case ‘it took her weeks to pass away, which was agonising for her, and heart-rending for her family. There was no discussion, no consultation with the daughter.’

Last summer, her father was taken to hospital feeling unwell, she told MPs. Doctors could not diagnose any illness, although he was very frail. After a few days, Mrs Bruce asked a nurse how he was doing.

The MP for Congleton recalled: ‘“Oh,” said the nurse, almost casually, “he’s not very well at all. He has not long to live; we’re putting him on the Liverpool Care Pathway.” No discussion, no explanation, no consultation; just an announcement. Surely there should be more formality about this, more dignity.’

A day later, he was moved to a nursing home. ‘There, his needs were attended to in a positive and caring way,’ Mrs Bruce said. ‘There he didn’t die. In fact, he got better. Now, well over six months later, that elderly man is very much alive, still being cared for: eating well, enjoying visits from his family. It’s not a fantastic quality of life – but it is a life.’

About Me

I am distraught and I despair that these events have befallen this family. The picture is of me and my lovely mum, murdered on the NHS (National-socialist Health Service). Murdered. Is that too strong a word? Her life was taken without her permission. By omission and by commission, actions taken and not taken conspired to end her life. She was kept in ignorance of what was proceeding before her very eyes, as were we. Was she, then, not murdered?